Women at Thomas Jefferson School of Law

The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture Series and the annual Women and the Law Conference are only two aspects of the important role that women play at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. At Thomas Jefferson, faculty, administration, staff and students work together to create a unique learning atmosphere in which women are encouraged to excel.

Empirical research demonstrates that female students at many law schools often do not perform as well as male students who entered law school with comparable academic credentials. The same is not true of women who choose to attend Thomas Jefferson. In recent years, women have comprised approximately one-half of our student population, and in recent graduating classes, women have made up more than one-half of the summa cum laude graduates. In May 2009, approximately 60% of the summa cum laude graduates and 70% of the magna cum laude graduates were women. In May 2010, 80% of the summa cum laude graduates were female and 50% of the magna cum laude graduates were female. In addition, the May 2010, December 2010, and May 2011 valedictorians were female. Women have a significant presence on the managing board of the Thomas Jefferson Law Review, and they also are often chosen for positions of honor by their peers.

A Law School Admission Council study ranked Thomas Jefferson eleventh in the nation for percentage of women on the faculty, but this statistic hardly tells the whole story. Many law schools have increased the number of females on their faculty, but these women often are hired into non-tenure track, lower paying and low prestige jobs. At Thomas Jefferson, however, women have long comprised approximately one-half of the tenured, tenure track, and full professors. Few other law schools in the country, if any, come close to matching Thomas Jefferson’s record in this regard.

Finally, almost one-third of the full-time Thomas Jefferson faculty include gender as a special focus of their research and teaching. Their scholarship addresses such issues as workplace sex discrimination; women and human rights law; gay, lesbian, transgender and other sexual identity issues; women migrants; sexual privacy issues; women’s treatment by the medical profession; assisted reproductive technologies; sex slavery and trafficking; the intersection of gender, race and intellectual property; and women’s rights and cultural groups.